Alman Vodou [5m1w: David Barron]

[Makonnen]

David Barron took form as an FMS inside joke. He was already in Haiti and his basic personality had already emerged, but he was very firmly "just another manager in search of a story." Then, through a wonderful stroke of luck, another writer had a character by the same name and that writer was generous enough to allow me to use his creation with full license. From that was born the outlines of his story, the surreal dream sequences where he channeled the experiences of the other character, the weird fantasy time-travel threads, etc. All of that was left at a bit of a dramatic point: the other David Barron's children had been kidnapped and this David had entered into a magical realm that included elements from vodun, a nightmare circus, and a smart-ass raven. That storyline is essentially on pause here. I can't say it won't resurface, but I anticipate the immediate future to be dominated by David's managerial career, his relationship with Ayida, and the struggles of international displacement.

Still, Ayida is now an initiated priestess, David still has a tendency to bizarre dreams, and who doesn't like grinning clowns with long knives for fingers?

David is also the coach for the Haitian national team, which is in many competitions, a challenge of being the smallest gazelle in a field full of carnivores.

There is an important scene from late November 2012 that I don't think will ever be written. Here is what happens: Port-Au-Prince--indeed, all of Haiti--is in ruins from the earthquake and football is the furthest thing from anyone's mind. David receives a letter from Saarbrücken, a German club in the German third division, offering him a job and offering to take on a small handful of players. David agonizes for a bit and insists they include a wider group of players, and ultimately accepts, partially as a way to escape the nightmare Haiti has become--a feeling amplified by his own ineffectiveness within that situation. Ayida, however, stays: her father is connected deeply to the flow of services and money into and out of the country, and those connections (while ethically questionable at times) gives her a way to feel, and to be, useful.

So, David arrives in Germany, along with Jimmy McNulty, Eliseo Agüeros, Ishmael Butler, Hayden Zurinaga, Arturo Robaina, Rayane Leclerc, Fouad Guichard, and Diego Calatayud from Racing Club and Vladimir Romero from Violette, each of whom were granted work permits for Germany as a gesture towards Haiti’s suffering. Much was made of it, and Sepp Blatter proclaimed it a sign of the global success of football as a humanitarian force, a claim that generated more winces than applause.

# # #

January 1, 2013.

The markings of celebration were all there: an empty bottle of champagne on the floor, a shiny green party hat and two noisemakers next to it; the spill of clothes that led to the bed; the bodies wrapped in white sheets, huddled against each other. But the mood was anything but, their faces taut with exhaustion and sadness and concern as they stared at the images on the small flatscreen on the wall opposite. Arte was running a year in retrospective special, and even with neither of them understanding more than a few words of German, they could follow the story. Buildings collapsed into themselves, rows of blue tents, the hulking shape of Sylvio Cator in the distance, white ambulances squealing down the street trailing waves of dust that hung in the air like tears.

David’s eyes were wet and a slow trail of water moved along his cheeks. Ayida was long past crying; over the past month her emotions had been worn and frayed and torn until she had no choice but to fold them away, taking care to gather all the loose ends and ripped patches and wrapping them around each other until nothing was left but a small, hard, stained ball that she could place deep inside her chest, well away from further devastation.

She had hoped this trip would loosen the hardness, and it had at first: when she landed in Saarbrücken and made her way through the maze of German customs and emerged, blinking and a little disoriented, into the harsh light of baggage claim, David was there, a snow-white lily veined with turquoise held shyly in his hand, and as they embraced, the crowd of travellers breaking around them like water around a rock, she felt a shudder run through her, a reverberation of memory of how things were before that night, before the ground opened up and swallowed what she knew of everyday life in Port-au-Prince.

But the softening effect was short-lived, the liquid flow evaporating within a day and she felt herself contracting again, drawing away from David’s presence even as they cleaved hungrily to each others touch. She had travelled in Europe before, but it all felt false now. The wine was spectacular but she was too aware of the difficulty of water; the food a surprising melange of French sophistication and German practicality, but her tongue still held on to the bitter metallic taste of military rations.

There was an orchestral swell and the Arte logo floated onto the screen, soon displaced by an Audi ad. She turned in David’s arms and nuzzled against his shoulder. “I can’t stay.”

David frowned and looked away. “I know.”

[gavrenwick]

You know I love your writing Mak. For my personal taste, you are one of the top two writers on the forum. Though I am not yet fully convinced that those two people aren't one in the same. KUTGW.

[Makonnen]

@gav, wow, thanks so much!

January 5, 2013

Kaiserslautern @ Saarbrücken, Friendly

Kaiserslautern 3 (Christopher Drazan 2; Kwame Nsor 50; Enis Hajri 67) –Saarbrücken 0

Saar’s Best: Adam Straith & Marc Lerandy

January 8, 2013

FC Bayern II @ Saarbrücken, Friendly

Bayern II 1 (Marius Duhnke 52) – Saarbrücken 1 (Ishmael Butler 9)

Saar’s Best: Christian Eggert

January 12, 2013

Anderlecht @ Saarbrücken, Friendly

Anderlecht 1 (Sacha Kljestan 57) – Saarbrücken 0

Saar’s Best: Adam Straith & Tim Kruse

January 16, 2013

Duisberg @ Saarbrücken, Friendly

Duisberg 2 (Goran Sukalo 33p, 62) – Saarbrücken 1 (Rayane Leclerc 7)

Saar’s Best: Rayane Leclerc

January 19, 2013

Saarbrücken @ Sprimont, Friendly

Saarbrücken 0 – Sprimont 0

Saar’s Best: Marc Lerandy

January 23, 2013

Delémont @ Saarbrücken, Friendly

Delémont 2 (Johnny Szlykowicz 14; Mickaël Rodríguez 40) – Saarbrücken 1(Ufuk Özbek 84)

Saar’s Best: Ufuk Özbek

January 27, 2013

Saarbrücken @ Bielefeld, Bundesliga.3

Bielefeld 4 (Fabian Klos 4; Marcel Appiah 35; Johannes Rahn 41, 64p) –Saarbrücken 1 (Markus Fuchs 25)

Saar’s Best: Markus Fuchs

# # #

David slept soundly in this small city nestled between Germany and France. He was never sure why, whether there was something special about Saarbrücken, or if it was just being away from Haiti. But his dreams, when he could remember them, were mundane, and for that he was thankful.

His days were long and often frustrating: perhaps he should have realized that he and his charges might be welcomed with open arms at the press conference, but not necessarily in the boardroom or on the field. The players were homesick and lonely and suffered more than the occasional set of cleats raking across their ankles, even in practice.

They were struggling, likely to spend more time in the reserves than the first team, and David had heard mutters of sie nahmen unsere Aufgabe and sie gehören nicht hierher and worried that they applied as much to him as to the players.

And the back office was frosty as the night air. Jürgen Luginger was a popular coach, and a good one, and David’s replacing him was frowned upon, even if the team were performing far below expectations in the league.

As always on the field, quality would win out and Robaina was slowly on his way to being accepted by the rest of the team. Setting the ball on a tee for a teammate to score would do that for a midfielder.

He had hoped the winter break would allow the rest of squad to bond and that he would begin to see the results on the field. Far from it: six friendlies had only generated three goals and the first league game had been a disaster against Bielefeld.

He would still occasionally wake in the dark of night, a sheen of sweat making the sheets cold against his skin, but he could never quite remember the moments before he awoke other than a sensation of falling, air rushing by him in the dark and a dim hint of the soft flapping of wings.

He learned that returning to sleep after this was not an option, and he would get up and pad around the small apartment, sometimes firing up his Rosetta Stone software to learn another few words of German. More often, he would sit in the front room with its old fashioned lace curtains, their edges yellowed with cigarette smoke and he would stare out over the peaked roofs of the neighborhood towards the mountains beyond and he would think of Ayida, of Dàyan, and of the way the ground beneath his feet had suddenly erupted into a churning, terrifying liquid.

But mostly he thought of Ayida, of the surprising warmth of her taut body, of her orchids and her smile.

He thought of drinking and would decide against it. He didn’t mind drinking, but doing it alone always seemed particularly depressing. And, he realized as he watched the sky move from blue into the faded pink of dawn, he was depressed enough.

# # #

League Position: 15th of 20, 1 points clear; 13 points behind Heidenheim and Rostock.

League Goals: Marcel Ziemer (9); Assists: Four with (3); Rating: Kevin Maek (6.98)

Overall Goals: Ziemer (9); Assists: Arturo Robaina (13); Rating: Maek (6.98)

[Makonnen]

February 2, 2013

Karlsruhe @ Saarbrücken, Bundesliga.3

Saarbrücken 2 (Sven Sökler 38p; Marcel Ziemer 70) – Karlsruhe 0

Saar’s Best: Jimmy McNulty

February 9, 2013

Saarbrücken @ Münster, Bundesliga.3

Münster 3 (Matthe Taylor 21; Marco Königs 54 76) – Saarbrücken 0

Saar’s Best: Marc Lerandy & Ufuk Özbek

February 16, 2013

Babelsberg @ Saarbrücken, Bundesliga.3

Saarbrücken 1 (Sven Sökler 37) – Babelsberg 1 (Kai-Fabian Schulz 17)

Saar’s Best: Christian Eggert

February 24, 2013

Saarbrücken @ Chemnitz, Bundesliga.3

Chemnitz 1 (Rui Alemida Monteiro 41) – Saarbrücken 0

Saar’s Best: Christian Eggert

# # #

League Position: 16th of 20, 2 points clear; 17 points behind Heidenheim.

League Goals: Marcel Ziemer (10); Assists: Jimmy McNulty (4); Rating: Kevin Maek (6.96)

Overall Goals: Ziemer (10); Assists: Arturo Robaina (13); Rating: Robaina (7.49)

# # #

March 2, 2013

Rostock @ Saarbrücken, Bundesliga.3

Rostock 2 (Alexandre Mendy 47; Tom Wellandt 82) – Saarbrücken 0

Saar’s Best: Tim Stegerer

March 9, 2013

Saarbrücken @ Burghausen, Bundesliga.3

Burghausen 3 (Ronald Schmidt 6 90+1p; Felix Luz 56) – Saarbrücken 1(Marcel Ziemer 30)

Saar’s Best: Marcel Ziemer

March 16, 2013

Stuttgarter Kickers @ Saarbrücken, Bundesliga.3

Saarbrücken 1 (Sven Sökler 31) – Stuttgarter K 1 (Jérôme Gondorf 90+3)

Saar’s Best: Adam Straith

March 24, 2013

Erfurt @ Saarbrücken, Bundesliga.3

Erfurt 1 (Kris Fillinger 7) – Saarbrücken 0

Saar’s Best: Adam Straith

# # #

League Position: 19th of 20, 3 points from safety; 27 points behind Burghausen.

League Goals: Marcel Ziemer (11); Assists: Jimmy McNulty, Lukas Kohler, Ziemer (4); Rating: Adam Straith (6.93)

Overall Goals: Ziemer (11); Assists: Arturo Robaina (13); Rating: Straith (6.91)

# # #

It didn’t matter if the evening followed a game or a practice or nothing at all. If he were home, he would make a simple meal and eat alone, picking at his food and scraping half of it into the garbage. He would tie the white bag and carry it downstairs and through the small alley next to his building, leaving it in the bin with the others. Most nights, a sleek white cat with black spots floating on its back like clouds would come and rub against his legs for a moment. If David reached down, it would vanish, a long blur disappearing beneath the dumpster and out of reach, so David would just stand there, feeling the light pressure against his ankles, before turning and trudging back upstairs.

He would run lukewarm water over the plates, not-quite scrubbing them in small circles, over and over, his eyes lost somewhere beyond the window pane, and then, as if suddenly realizing what he was doing, he would move the water to a scalding heat that left his hands red and move quickly through the rest of the dishes, meticulously cleaning them and leaving them to dry on the small rack by the sink, carefully setting a towel to catch the runoff created by the slight slope of the counter.

He remained intense in practices, but found himself staying seated through most of the games. He missed Dayàn more than he thought he would, the moments they shared just before the shrill whistle that began the game, the small observations as the action unfolded before them.

His players seemed to appreciate it. He read quotes about how “the new coach was letting them play,” how he had a philosophy, “but he trusted them to figure it out.”

He didn’t think much about the articles, and barely noticed over the past two months how, like the voices of sailors as a ship moved towards the shoals, the tone shifted slowly from trusting to troubled as Saarbrücken fell from the middle of the table towards the relegation zone.

Instead, after the dishes were done, he would find himself spending hours online, scouring the internet for information about people from Port-au-Prince. He would use Google Maps to trace the route he took from his house, nestled in the small hills away from the city, down to the stadium, and then from there back out along the water to her house. The technology served as an imperfect mirror, a memory of a time before the earthquake, and he would recognize buildings and intersections only to realize a moment later that they no longer existed, lost to the clouds of smoke and piles of rubble that emerged out of nowhere to dominate the horizon.

He searched for Dayàn online, but found nothing more than ads for personal information services. More than once he sat, his credit card in hand, before sighing and closing the browser window and would stare, watching the shadows mark the hours of the night on the wall.